Hidden camera

Like Samsung's other high-end TVs, the UN75ES9000 offers the Smart Interaction voice and gesture control system. Unlike those others, however, the requisite built-in camera for gesture recognition (and apps like Skype) can be pressed down to hide behind the TV when not in use. The action is manual, by the way: there's no button or remote command to hide or reveal the camera.

Wave to the birdie

In a new twist on gesture recognition, the app allows you to play the game using gestures only, much like Microsoft's Xbox 360 Kinect. The app is free and now available from the company's Smart TV app store.

Picture quality claims

The TV will use a combination of the company's Micro Dimming Ultimate (which is on the ES8000) and Precision Black Local Dimming technology (which isn't) to deliver what it claims will be the "highest contrast ratio on a Samsung Smart TV to date" for what that's worth. Given that the E8000 plasma has a fairly impressive dynamic range, this is quite a bold claim, especially for an LCD television. The ES9000 is the only 2012 Samsung TV to employ local dimming, although it does so from an edge-lit configuration (like Sony's HX850) as opposed to full-array (like the Sharp Elite).